EDF - PREMIO: a smart-grid demonstration project

In September 2008, the municipality of LAMBESC in the PACA region of France was selected to host the PREMIO project. PREMIO is the first smart-grid demonstration project to be conducted in mainland France. EDF is providing 40% of the total budget, with the remainder being financed equally by the PACA region and its 11 partners (including ADEME, ERDF, WATTECO, GIORDANO and CRISTOPIA). CAPENERGIES, a French competitive cluster dedicated to the development of green energy, is leading the project.

The purpose of PREMIO is to study how the various energy resources distributed across a region can be harnessed to achieve a global objective, such as reducing CO₂ emissions or load peaks. Ten resource types are being investigated, such as small generating plants using renewable energy (solar or biogas), systems for controlling heating, heat pumps and public lighting, and or electricity or heat storage solutions.

The project's control unit is now operational, and the first data are starting to come in from the field. The control unit algorithms were developed by EDF R&D, which is also participating in 4 of the 9 system tests being conducted. These experiments cover individual electricity storage units coupled to photovoltaic panels, residential and commercial load shedding, heat pumps coupled to hot water tanks, and wood-burning stoves designed to replace individual electric heaters.

Through PREMIO, EDF R&D is also taking part in a project run by the American institute EPRI: the "Smart-Grid Demonstration Initiative".